


Close to Home

by sterlingseamstress



Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Headcanon, may expand on this, this is short but I've thought of this for a while
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 12:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24969892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sterlingseamstress/pseuds/sterlingseamstress
Summary: just a drabble from Gisela's thoughts, and some hairstyling.
Relationships: Gisela/Uhtred of Bebbanburg
Comments: 9
Kudos: 16





	Close to Home

The first time she did his hair, they’d just spent the night together. His hair was still damp from the deed, the fair locks tangled from all her tugging and guidance. Gisela’s heart had swelled with pride, though she hid her grin behind his head. Instead, she took up her comb, and slowly, carefully, began to straighten out his hair. Having him sit between her legs was a new intimacy. A warrior, trusting her with his back. Not only that, but allowing her to comb his hair, just as her mother had combed her and Guthred’s hair when they were young—it was the intimacy of domesticity.

Gisela didn’t have the chance to touch Uhtred’s hair for a long time after that. Guthred was back, as she’d always dreamed, but her heart was split in two when Uhtred was taken. A convent became both sanctuary and prison, and in place of the man who would give her children, she helped with the care of the sisters’. But fate, she knew, would bring him back to her. And he did at the last moment.

The day of her wedding, she braided lavender into his hair, despite his protests. There wasn’t much he could do to stop her, especially when she stopped to kiss his neck after each braid was finished with a length of wool. She grinned when she saw him before that altar, looking like Freyr. That had been her plan, but soon enough their eyes were too full of tears for her to tease him about it.

For years, that was what she did. Gisela would spend a portion of the morning styling her husband’s hair. He played with their sons and daughter while she did, and the world was good. When he left for battles, or when Alfred called him from her side, no one touched her work, and she combed the tangles from his hair when he returned. Finan laughed about it. Sithric asked her to help with his hair once, and Gisela refused.

Today, she braided his hair as securely as she could, twining in wool further up than she usually did. Her belly was round again, making it hard for Uhtred to sit as close as he normally did. Lambert, he asked her to call the child, and she nodded while she worked. Her eyes brimmed with tears; this goodbye would be the hardest. Off he went to fight again, for the first time in a long while.

“I’m done.” Gisela dropped the last end, and saw his blurry grin when he turned.

“Thank—what’s wrong?”

“Pregnancy.” She shrugged and wrapped her arms around him. “Be safe.”

He left soon after. He didn’t know he’d never see her again. The norns had told her of three children, not four. So late in her pregnancy, that only meant one option.

Gisela would not survive her labor. 


End file.
